When it comes to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, Australian Defence Material Minister Mr. Combet, is easily fooled.
During a visit to the Lockheed Martin production facility for the F-35 in Fort Worth, Texas, Mr. Combet stated that, "The visit has reinforced my confidence that the JSF is the right aircraft to meet Australia’s future air combat needs and represents value for money for the Australian taxpayer."
As any professional politician would, he gives himself an out.
Mr Combet said the 2009 Defence White paper confirmed that Australia would acquire around 100 JSF aircraft, but the government would not formally commit to buying until it was confident the JSF program was meeting cost, schedule and capability goals.
The F-35 program has some serious issues with its schedule. In U.S. fiscal year 2009 there were to be over 300 test flights. We have over 30. For fiscal year 2010, starting in a few days, there are to be over 1200 flight tests–plus the makeup work for fy 2009.
There are problems with meeting "milestones". In September 2008, the program published a schedule that was itself an adjustment to make up for a previous schedule with slips. The new schedule showed that several aircraft would have their first flight in 2009. This has not happened. Several of these aircraft have not been rolled out yet. AF-1 should have its (already late) first flight any day now. It was rolled out in December 2008.
The proof of short take-off and landing with the F-35B has stopped showing up on schedules. It has slipped several times and is scheduled for late this year. Will it happen? While not everyone is going to order the STOVL F-35B, everyone is effected by it because it has a huge impact on overall program health.
Mr. Combet conveniently punts to the recent Defence White Paper that was released as a proof of sanity for the F-35 and Australia.This paper itself is hugely flawed on so many levels. Using it as a reference is a credibility destroyer. And Mr. Combet has no choice but to punt to the government which has to make the decsion on committing money to the F-35.
Not mentioned anywhere is the fact that the F-35 is five years late for Australia. Recent news reports state that it may be 2017 before the F-35 gets its act together for an arrival in Australia. Many years ago when the Australian government jumped of the cliff with this high risk project, arrival was expected in 2012.
Maybe we will see some honesty or at least some awareness of the risks that are involved with the F-35 for Australian Defence. Given past performance of Defence procurement as a whole, things are not encouraging.
Combet, like others that have never been around fast jets in any real capacity, has seen the dog an pony show and in the end, is pretty gullible the seller of the aircraft now knows it. Faith-based marketing of expensive and risky weapons systems is a loser play. Since no one has a clue what the F-35 will cost, Mr. Combets comment of value to the Australian taxpayer doesn’t have a shred of proof to back it up.
When first appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement after the Rudd Government came to office, Combet accepted the Tiger attack helicopter into service despite a hugely condemning report by the Australian National Accounting Office which gave very good grounds for bugging out of a contract that has introduced a very deficient capability. He also threw funding around on related luxuries organized by DMO such as superfluous flight simulators.
Now as a Minister for Defence Personnel, Material and Science, he heads up an arguably needless department that is at the core of many problems in Australian defence management. Why is military manpower under separate departmental control when is should be managed by the services and bureaucrats within Department of Defence? Methinks personnel was hived off to justify a separate ministry and give the Defence Science and Technology Organization more political clout. Now Defence Material Organization is also under same ministerial purview effectively removing control of these 2 increasingly powerful agencies from the Minister for Defence!
The over-promotion and subsidization of defence industry and science in Australia is enormously inflating defence budgeting and presently reflects Rudd Government efforts to subsidize employment and industrial activities in multiple areas of the economy at unjustifiable cost to the taxpayer. As implied by the Chief of Defence Force recently, Australia should be buying more proven equipments ‘off the shelf’.
As for military expertise, Combet would have no more awareness of what he is dealing with than the abundance of Senior Executive Service public servants within the defence realm considering he spent most of his career within the trade union movement.
Spot on Bushranger 71,
It appears even in Howard’s twilight years where he jumped into bed with Bush and the F-35 I thought the new labor government would investigate, argue and scrap the F-35. Unfortunately the US must be offering a few WMDs for us not to back away from what even the general public is starting to see is a massive waste of taxpayers dollars.
I think the Australian media has a lot to answer for, they could help being more informative to the Australian public.
Main deliveries starting in 2017 would actually make more sense IMO, as those would be block IV (and not originally conceived block III) and received one year after first block IVs were received by other foreign air forces, thus allowing ‘others’ to find the ‘bugs’ and be the ‘mistake-jets’, etc.
Also, 2017 deliveries would mean FY15 buy, which is expected to be the first ‘FRP’ Buy year (ostensibly cheaper buys) and would be expected to be ‘Fixed Priced’ too, rather than ‘cost-reimbursement’ priced for LRIP orders.
Conservative guesstimate: $125m in 2015 USD per F-35A unit cost (for 75-100 RAAF F-35) including 20-25 spare engines, launch rails and Joint Mission Planning Systems. For 10 yr price including Infrastructure, Training and Support… perhaps $250-$270m in 2015 USD per unit, for long-term budget planning/approval sake.
Conclusion: delay F-35A procurement until block III and initial block IV ‘mistake-jet’ issues can be corrected and then commence ‘fixed-contract’ block IV and block V buys @ 15 units/yr over 4 yrs with option for more.
Concurrently, under contingency planning, allocate 1-2 RAAF F-111 a/c near-term for a prototype radical modernization upgrade: including delta-wing configuration replacing swing-wing, new PW-229 power, CFT, AESA/new radome, LO inlets and re-worked weapons bay for: AMRAAM, JSOW-ER, Meteor, SDB II and other. If F-35 for whatever reason is unable to deliver or meet specifications by 2016-2017; allocate 30 F-111 (from AMARC) to be configured in said new modernized configuration (along w/10-12 existing RAAF F-111), as well as procure an additional 48 F-18 ‘E’ (w/ improved power and latest avionic available), or possibly even 40-48 F-15SE-OZ.. Any thoughts? Alternatives?
Interesting alternative proposal, geogen. If the fuselage of the F-111s is sound, then a new wing would surely remove some of those “things we don’t know about” that so terrify the Defence bureacracy (or so they would have us believe in their senate testimony).
I have another question, though – doesn’t Australia use ASRAAMs? And wasn’t there something recently (on Ares?) about ASRAAM not being an option for internal carriage on the F-35?
I guess that’s one way for the yanks to get people to buy their AIM-9X…
F-35 weapon system unit cost for fy 2010 USAF orders lay around 230 mil dollar. No numbers for 2011. I doubt that gonne be 100 mil lower in 2015.
With the predicted sustainment cost for 30 years over 300 mil it gonne be too expensive to buy in large numbers. Even for the USA.
If i was a potential F-35 buyer i would wait till testing is completed. And that can take a while cause not much progress on that front. At the moment The F-35 is far from ready. Its way to early to make a decision. Prolly best to wait at least 4 years before ordering.
Meanwhile start looking for alternatives. For Australia new F-15 or Eurofghters combined with cheap Grippen NG and lotsa long range uavs. Also in combination new early warning systems to detect stealthy planes, long range standoff missiles to overcome iads, new airdefense systems etc. There could well be alternatives that should be looked at cause the F-35 gonne be way to costly for lotsa nations.
I pritty much doubt also sinking all your money/resources in the F-35 will solve Australias
specific problems. Too name a few huge airspace to cover over land and sea, potentialy opposing high end fighters and huge distances to fly to potential targets.
Vince
Gripen NG would be such a ridiculously superior option for Australia that it’s not even funny.
Yeah lol
The Gripen c/d is already the cheapest networked fighters around. If yu got a good early warning system you can fly to a good firing position. Gripen NG only gonne be better. So for home defense yu dont need F-35 imo.
Heretic,
I happen think that the Gripen is a great aircraft, but let’s be realistic; you seem to overlook the fact that both Norway and the Netherlands concluded that the Gripen NG was inferior to the F-35 in just about any role. Would it be any different for Australia?
B. Bolsøy
Oslo
Good point on AIM-9X Bern,
Australia has spent a lot of time money and effort equipping our existing F/A-18 fleet with the ASRAAM yet our new Hornets will be equipped with AIM-9X? It appears the Australian government at the time was happy to bend over for the USA once again!
The ASRAAM will eventually be included in the F-35 program for the RAF and therefore it looks like the RAAF will have a choice.
Why then did we purchase the ‘F’ models with AIM-9X… They would have integrated it if we asked them too, seems we just didn’t ask and now they have an ally who will spend the time and money deciding on which missile is better, that in turn gives them feedback (due to our governments relationship) on the possibility of upgrading their 9X if it has short falls and they never spent a cent on research and live fire testing…
Jason all’s I’m saying is we would have still got our 24 F/A-18F’s with ASRAAM if the government knew how to negotiate. We picked them up for most believe was a closed door negotiation of USD$6 Billion this was also said to be a sweetener to increase our International Trade exports into the US (what exactly that entails who knows).
We even handed over an extra $35 Million to have 12 wired for future Growler config. Will the RAAF even use this …? A full sensory and jamming outfit could run into the hundreds of million dollars as well.
Our Government was throwing money at this deal (not to mention our wedgetails which are now 3 years behind schedule) what’s an extra 100 Million between friends?
But if you want to get into it (preferable with a few cold beers instead of the office)
If we were up against the flankers in the region and your quote “ASRAAM is better for longer ranging engagements” and isn’t that why the RAAF picked it over the AIM-9X to start with (the F-18 can’t compete in a close dogfight anyway, wouldn’t a first shot put them on the offensive?)… or was it the domestic license manufacturing/upgrading contracts for Australian industry which don’t exist with the AIM-9X….
Jason,
Conceptually, such an upgraded F-111 would be an unprecedented strategic multi-purpose Intercept-Strike capability, something any major power would be jealous of.
If it proved worthy and feasible, who knows really, perhaps GD would even Tinker around with reentering specialized combat aviation sector (to complement Gulfstream), via in-house/joint-developed prototype as competition to FB-22 or poor-mans NGB? I understand and accept your logical response, however it would seem the concept was merely pondered as an advanced contingency. (more than one chess move ahead).
Recall, back in say 1998-99 USAF days, when F-22 and JSF were the assumed combat be-all.. imagine if you had told the military minds of the day that in 10 yrs, remote-controlled UAVs, Turbo-prop armed/recon and even airship blimp assets among other Irregular warfare toys, might be eating heavily into JSF and F-22 would be limited to 85 block 35 capable units? The most ridiculous thing ever?
The arguement gets really interesting, and a lot of you guys have hinted at the reasons, when you start to look at the underlying reasons for Australia’s defence procurement strategy, and you can go right back to our colonial heritage if you choose. Seldom have we bought/acquired defence hardware on the basis of what we really need, we’ve done it to satisfy political not military imperatives, its more about relationships and dependancy on more powerful friends. Unfortunately those political imperatives have rarely dovetailed with our military needs, hard to see a time when they will, and our military establishment generally makes the best of what they get and are used to making do.
To expect politicians, who ultimately have the decision making power, to make informed, strategic and competent decisions on defence procurement on the basis of their pure strategic, cost and national security benefits is to p—s into the wind.
Totally agree with you on that Jason, like I said with a few beers we could discuss the pro’s n con’s for ages! Still I would like to see 100 F/A-18E/F Hornets for the next 10-15 years n then a JSF or equivelent fighter. I don’t believe we need a overpriced n underperforming JSF protecting Australia….
Chopper –
For sake of discussion, and in defense of politicians getting it right on major procurements once in awhile or even when just getting lucky… wasn’t decision to acquire F-111 ultimately a govt executive decision, while Military opinion at the time was more inclined to favor A-5?
You’re right geogen, F111 ‘was’ a great aircraft for Australia and a risky political decision that worked out, no denying that the decision to buy in the face of opposition from the ADF was a good one. Worth observing that it’s getting harder to make informed decisions on hardware purchases because the waters are constantly muddied by carpetbaggers from the respective manufacturers. That also says a lot about the the competence and independence of the people currently making multi billion dollar procurement decisions on military hardware on behalf of this country. No-one seems to want to say ‘prove it’ anymore.
The development of the Australilan F111 product was a result of great innovation and adaption by RAAF engineers and tradies, the expertise and knowledge gained has now been shafted by those same politicians, doesn’t matter that they’re now a different colour, a politician is a politician sad to say. What has been offered in return by way of indigenous industry benefit in the F35 purchase seems to be little consolation for what has been lost, and I freely admit that trying to fathom just what we might get out of any ‘industry partnership’ on any purchase is a non exact science.
Can’t help thinking that we should and can do better if only because the proponents of the current defence procurement strategy are strangely silent in defence of their agenda.
Some good discussion this thread.
Pre-1974 when we had individual service ministries, the military in concert with career public servants within their respective departments generally did a pretty good job of managing equipment acquisition projects. Since then, a dysfunctional semi-unified monster has been created with a procurement ‘bible’ dictating processes that favour the big arms bazaar players, defence industry and science.
Extreme influence is peddled by former Australian ministers for defence and military chiefs employed by the big arms manufacturers – a fighter pilot colleague from the 1960s who retired as a 1 Star is now on a package of around $500k per annum to help brainwash those involved in ADF capabilities decision-making. Big money of course changes loyalties.
A fairly recent MinDef is involved in companies that were strongly favoured by the Howard Government decision just before Election 2007 to acquire 2 x LHD (smallish aircraft carriers) and 46 x militarily unproven MRH-90 helos. There are other examples of course of inadequate justification.
Objectivity in capability evaluation has gone down the tube. Once upon a time, we insisted on tropical trialling for prospective aircraft acquisitions but ’tis now very difficult to acquire ‘hot and high’ performance data for some types envisaged or that have been introduced.
The next real disaster is likely to be Wedgetail and, on present indications, the politicians will not have the testicular fortitude to bug out of that project.
So, how might this mammoth problem be somewhat countered? Only in my view by substantially unwinding the Tange Re-organization through disbanding the superfluous ministry of Defence Personnel, Material & Science, downsizing DMO, DSTO and subordinating to Mindef and according each of the armed forces a junior Minister or a Parliamentary Secretary. These actions would reinstate an appropriate degree of political control for the military and substantially diminish public service domination of the armed forces.
But would that inhibit the influence peddling? Markedly reducing the political clout of DMO, DSTO and giving the military more political authority regarding capabilities determination would have to be of significant organizational benefit, but it would not of course prevent the politicians from doing murky deals with their highly paid mates in the arms industry. The generic problem in that regard is that nobody in Australia is held accountable for much at all these days whereas a few involved in flawed military hardware acquisitions ought to have been brought before the courts.
We can only hope that as Phase 2 of the Global Financial Crisis inevitably begins to emerge in 2010, the public will bring much more pressure to bear on the major political parties concerning reckless defence spending.
Bushranger, you’ve just added substantially to the discussion. The system is broken and you make some good suggestions about how to fix it, one hopes that someone in absolute authority and with a high degree of independence has the moral fibre to sort out the mess that is defence procurerment.
Pingback: F-35, Big question marks for Australian Defence « ELP Defens(c)e Blog
Pingback: Time for an investigation about the troubled F-35 program | ELP Defens(c)e Blog
Pingback: Time for a Congressional investigation | ELP Defens(c)e Blog